50 years ago: Gulf of Tonkin incident

August 1, 2014

The Gulf of Tonkin incident, an event shrouded in controversy, gave President Johnson the legal rationale to begin the Vietnam War.

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Fleeing Americans board a U.S. Marine helicopter at Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Saigon April 1975. American involvement in the Vietnam War came to an end when troops from communist North Vietnam invaded Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam in the South., 1975.

Dirck Halstead/Getty Images

48of50

Fleeing Americans board a U.S. Marine helicopter at Tan Son Nhut Airbase in Saigon April 1975. American involvement in the Vietnam War came to an end when troops from communist North Vietnam invaded Saigon, the capital of the Republic of Vietnam in the South., 1975.